1. Technical Field
The invention is related to improvements in a computer mouse of the type which controls cursor movement in the X-Y plane of a video display and the "click" controls for the cursor which implement the "select" function, the "drag" function and so forth.
2. Background Art
As used in this specification, the term "computer mouse" refers to the type of user interface device which permits a computer operator to move a cursor in any direction in the plane of a computer-generated video display and to exercise any one of a predetermined set of control functions at any location of the cursor. These functions are well-known in the art and include a "select" function, a "drag" function and so forth. Typically, a computer mouse is a hand-held device which the operator rolls over the X-Y plane of a digitizer tablet, for example, to move the cursor in the video display. The mouse typically has two to three "click" buttons which enable the operator to exercise the predetermined set of functions including "select" and "drag". The mouse includes logic circuitry wired to the computer. The operator uses the mouse to control cursor movement and uses a keyboard for data entry.
The main disadvantage of the conventional computer mouse is that the operator must remove one hand from the computer keyboard whenever it is desired to operate the mouse and to re-establish the position of the hand on the keyboard after finishing a given movement of the mouse. Thus, there arises an inherently wasteful "back-and-forth" motion of the hand between the mouse (whose position on the digitizing tablet varies from time-to-time) and the keyboard.
Various prior art techniques are known for replacing the keyboard with a hand-worn device, such as a glove equipped with finger-actuated sensing devices, but such techniques have nothing to do with a computer mouse. Specifically, such techniques have nothing to do with directly converting finger or wrist motion direction to cursor motion direction on the video display. Instead, these prior art techniques only disclose the concept of typing or entering individual characters through a handworn device.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,537 discloses a glove interface for digital data entry for entering specified characters one-by-one in the manner of a computer keyboard. A similar technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,001. This technique is coupled with a light pen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,176. U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,981 discloses interpreting hand motion signals by mounting a transmitter on the glove and aiming it at receivers located at various positions near the periphery of the video display. This technique suffers from the disadvantage that the operator must aim his hand carefully in order to effect communication. U.S. Pat. No. 3,022,878 discloses a hand-mounted keyboard. U.S. Pat. No. 4,954,817 discloses mounting a miniaturized digitizer tablet on one finger and a stylus ring on another finger to implement a conventional mouse/digitizer tablet system. This latter concept has nothing to do with directly translating a wrist or finger motion direction to cursor motion direction.